Malcolm wrote:We taxpayers pay dearly for waste all the time-- that is what you claim is immoral. You claim that endless research is wasteful and immoral. So is externalizing the cost of the pollution of a massively polluting industry, for example, tar sands, onto governments.

If you're buying the waste it's not an externality, it's the commodity. You're mixing words around in all sorts of circles.

All real research has an end. You are missing my distinction between data collection and data analysis. I get the feeling that you aren't spending the time to read what I said before you reply.

Malcolm wrote:We taxpayers pay dearly for waste all the time-- that is what you claim is immoral. You claim that endless research is wasteful and immoral. So is externalizing the cost of the pollution of a massively polluting industry, for example, tar sands, onto governments.

If you're buying the waste it's not an externality...

That is the point, no one is buying tons of garbage being sunk into the ocean, no one is buying arsenic and heavy metals that flow into the environment, but nevertheless, we taxpayers pick up the costs of disposing of this waste.

As a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who has been studying the effects of Japan’s Fukushima reactor leak since right after it happened,Ken Buesselerhad long grown frustrated with the repeated scare stories he was seeing online. So he decided to do something about it....

... and he is asking people on the US West Coast to help him collect data (so he's crowd sourcing data collection on water radioactivity along the US West Coast).

As a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who has been studying the effects of Japan’s Fukushima reactor leak since right after it happened,Ken Buesselerhad long grown frustrated with the repeated scare stories he was seeing online. So he decided to do something about it....

... and he is asking people on the US West Coast to help him collect data (so he's crowd sourcing data collection on water radioactivity along the US West Coast).

Kirt

I found these two videos by biochemist Dr Phil Mason quite informative.

The west coast of the US has naturally occurring highly radioactive minerals, and all the radioactive nuclei of the materials from Fukushima being measured will have decayed by now.

As a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who has been studying the effects of Japan’s Fukushima reactor leak since right after it happened,Ken Buesselerhad long grown frustrated with the repeated scare stories he was seeing online. So he decided to do something about it....

... and he is asking people on the US West Coast to help him collect data (so he's crowd sourcing data collection on water radioactivity along the US West Coast).

But this actually is not the same topic as anthropogenic global warming.

No it's not, but this thread is where most of the Fukashima material seems to be.

Stasis theory is fine. I used it all the time even before I knew what it was, just as I spoke in prose for years before finding out that that's what I was doing. But if you reject AGW, you are, frankly, being a flat-earther. AGW is as much mainstream science as plate tectonics (and is, oddly, about the same age) and the theory of evolution.

Kim. My school is the HQ of Plate Tectonics research in the world. I already brought up the topic earlier, but no one addressed it. Plate Tectonics is similar to GW in a way, you have absolutely no idea hotly contested some theories are within the field, it's crazy, but you'll never hear of it from politicians (and a know of multiple Geologists at my school who do not believe in AGW as per IPCC definition, perhaps because their careers don't depend upon the position). PT is similar to GW in that, we know that it's happening, but why it is happening, i.e. the explanation, is not absolutely agreed upon. Science is not the data, it is the explanation. (Have you by any chance read any of the Kuhn I sent you? I think I referred you to him 4 times, and haven't heard your thoughts yet.)

Nothing about flat-earth theory is anywhere near debates about PT or GW, because it's an non-falsifiable theory. If you tell them that there are pictures from space, they will tell you that it's a conspiracy, and so on. AGW is not like that, nor is non-AGW.

However, there are elements about AGW that verge upon non-falsifiability at times. Particularly when they create projections that posit any possible future temperature fluctuation to be within the range of their predictions, I.e. the models posited are such that one cannot think of any climate behaviour that can't be interpreted in terms of the models, allows for periods of all sorts of global cooling, as well as global warming (hence the rhetoric shifted a few years ago from Global Warming to Climate Change), even natural increases proposed by alternative theories: a theory that predicts everything predicts nothing. What they need to do is: 1) provide replicable evidence for conclusions, 2) present predictions whereby AGW is falsified, 3) statistically controls within those prior to parameters a 95%+ probability. E.g. With Darwin, falsification was defined as an exo that can't derive from previous structures, and in modern genetics, one can define this as something like proving that canine DNA is closer to jellyfish DNA than human DNA. It's actually a lot easier to create theories that have falsifiable predictions if you have a large body of evidence. There's a lot of loose play going on with AGW in this regard. E.g. to use theories that say that "god did it," explains everything 100% of the time.

So what you must answer me is, what are criteria whereby you falsify AGW?

But that is accepting the implicit assumptions in the IPCC argument. I have already made a study of this, and followed and analysed the footnotes. But this hasn't been addressed.

All I ask is that we not talk conspiracies, but talk science and logic. I won't bring up AGW cover ups of contradictory evidence (I really wouldn't anyway), if you don't reduce the discussion to conspiracy theories about oil companies.

Kim O'Hara wrote:That's certainly what we have been told to think ... but hold on a moment: who told us to think that? Kim

It's obvious.

Hi, Malcolm, Do you mean it's, "Obvious that going after fossil fuels would destroy the world economy" or, "Obvious who told us to think that"?I disagree with the first and can provide evidence as to its falsity, but agree with the second ... at least, I have some likely candidates in mind. You may have others and may be right about them too.

Fundamentally it's not a topic that can be limited to single line debates. It's really an academic issue, that unfortunately has spilled over into politics and media a bit too much, but not without the undue effort of some sensationalist scientists, perhaps on both sides. This is something that really is beyond the scope of the internet and requires a book length study to fully explore. But assuming background knowledge, one can make it simple, you only need to address precise issues - the definitions and assumptions that make or break the theory. In this sense, you can say a lot in a couple lines, assuming the person you're talking can think clearly.

Kim O'Hara wrote:That's certainly what we have been told to think ... but hold on a moment: who told us to think that? Kim

It's obvious.

Hi, Malcolm, Do you mean it's, "Obvious that going after fossil fuels would destroy the world economy" or, "Obvious who told us to think that"?I disagree with the first and can provide evidence as to its falsity, but agree with the second ... at least, I have some likely candidates in mind. You may have others and may be right about them too.

Kim

Kim,

At present our manufacturing capacity as well as our agricultural capacity is completely dependent on fossil fuels, not to mention the grids in various countries. Until someone discovers another relatively inexpensive source of consumable energy that does not itself depend on fossil fuels, at present world population levels it is irresponsible to start eliminating the use of fossil fules by fiat. Is eliminating their use a desiderata? Certainly. Does our world ecology demand it, certainly. Can we do so immediately and globally? No, our addiction to fossil fuels is so deep, that it is impossible for us to withdraw from fossil fuels at this time. Every part of global trade, manufacture and agriculture extensively uses fossil fuels.

The thing with fossil fuels is also that they can be put in barrels, pumped in pipes etc. Then they can be stored and traded on the stock exchange. The stock market can trade on them and gamble on future production. Even the land/mineral rights/oil-fields can be bought, sold traded etc.There is a huge amount of money being made in this industry and the amount of money that goes into, funding, lobbying and bribing political parties is huge.

Wind, wave, solar.... these are more difficult to 'own' as such. I suspect that stockmarket investors would expect less of a return on these sorts of technologies. It's not impossible that that could change over time, but renewables need to be developed now, before more damage is done to the environment.

This is a case of greed v's need. Who would you bet on?

“Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?” ― Søren Kierkegaard

tellyontellyon wrote:Wind, wave, solar.... these are more difficult to 'own' as such. I suspect that stockmarket investors would expect less of a return on these sorts of technologies. It's not impossible that that could change over time, but renewables need to be developed now, before more damage is done to the environment.

You are being naive, these things are quite easy to own, they simply are expensive technologies (dependent on petroleum based manufacturing), with short lifespans (the average wind generator has a life span of about 20 years) that no one will invest in without heavy government subsidies.

Actually, in the US, renewables are a very fast growing part of the energy economy, but there are all kinds of problems with wind depending on where it is going to be sited.